For You, I Will
by Kosovaheartland
Summary: "Selfish, not selfless; she knows full well that what she did was selfish, no matter what anyone tells her. It wasn't heroic, it wasn't brave, it wasn't even reckless. It was her own selfishness that caused her to splinter herself across time and space, no doubt about it." A different take on a post Trenzalore fic: Clara struggles to cope with the knowledge of her echoes.


**This oneshot is dedicated to the really rather wonderful The Twenty Third of November. Sending you lots of hugs and positive thoughts. Be positive and patient like Slovenia (you'll see what I mean :P) and have faith everything will start to get better soon. Em xx**

**Inspired by the beautiful place described in the final scene (which is just as picturesque and perfect in real life, padlocks, fairy lights, blankets on the barstools and all), Borislav the taxi driver who put up with my constant string of questions last snowy December and caused me to fall in love with the place in question, and 'For You I Will' by Drehz, from his album 'Perpetual Emotions'. And of course The Twenty Third of November, who has put up with my bombarding her inbox far more than anyone should ever have to :P Read it whenever you're ready, and I hope it lives up to expectations!**

**Reviews would be just fab.**

**For You, I Will**

She doesn't fully appreciate all that she's accomplished in that single, selfish action at first. That appreciation will come later; at first, she's far too preoccupied with the monumental struggle to hold herself together to worry about such things. Selfish, not selfless; she knows full well that what she did was selfish, no matter what anyone tells her. It wasn't heroic, it wasn't brave, it wasn't even reckless. It was her own selfishness that caused her to splinter herself across time and space, no doubt about it.

It might be a little easier to cope with if only she wasn't the only one to see it that way.

She feels as though her very essence has been torn into a thousand pieces; a thousand shattered components of her soul hurtling through time and space with an alarming sense of urgency, each piece with its own task to fulfil, each with its own deathly important purpose.

How can she possibly compare to all of these many elements of her soul when her own existence, next to theirs, is so unimportant?

It's a bizarre sensation, living a thousand critically important lives all in the space of a second. It takes rather a lot of getting used to.

At first, she can remember each and every one of those doppelgangers, every alternate life that she lived in the space of that second in order to save her best friend crammed within her memory, until she can't quite recall which of the Clara Oswalds and Oswin Oswalds and Clara Oswin Oswalds and every other combination of those three names under the sun is the original, which is her, which is the life she's supposed to be living. That's most likely why she collapses, the doctor will tell her later: confusion. Coping with the aftermath of living a thousand lives in the space of a second isn't exactly the human brain's forte.

In some ways, maybe it's just as well that when she awakes from her long slumber three days later, back in her own bed on board the TARDIS (her bedroom back where she left it, thankfully; it would seem that either the TARDIS is feeling rather sorry for her or harsh words have been exchanged between the doctor and his sexy), the lives of those doppelgangers have become a little hazy.

They're not forgotten completely. It reminds her of trying to recall a scene from childhood; a handful of shattered fragments but the crucial pieces of the jigsaw puzzle required in order to make any sort of sense of those fragments gone forever from her memory. In the moments after entering the doctor's timestream she can recall everything; every last life she lived, each and every way she sacrificed herself in order to save his life. But the day she comes round, tucked up under a mess of blankets and her hand grasped tightly in the doctor's, the strongest memory she has of any of those alternate lives at all is a ballerina on a music box, soufflés without milk (how on earth did she expect her soufflés to live if she didn't even use any milk?) a cold metal ladder into a colder empty shell of metal and music... love... love is a rebellious bird that nobody can tame.

He simply stares at her when she recalls that particular aspect of the memory out loud, holding her hand a little tighter, and she can tell full well from the look on his face that this is one of the rare occasions on which she somehow succeeded in attracting his attention.

"L'amour est un oiseau rebelle que nul ne peut apprivoiser." The words slip off his tongue effortlessly, flowing; ironic really, what with French being the language of the romantics.

"I did Spanish for GCSE," she tells him, attempting her usual witty humour. But somehow the words fail to come out with quite the energy she had intended for them to.

"Love is a rebellious bird that nobody can tame," he repeats, his expression curiously grave. "That's the translation. Also known as Habenera."

"Never had you down as an opera fan."

"Clara." She can tell from the very way in which he utters her name that he's not in the mood for her attempted light-heartedness. He opens his mouth as though to begin to explain and then closes it again, settling for draping his arm over her (surprisingly, without his usual awkwardness at gestures such as this), stroking her hair. "Just... just know I was there. I was there, I noticed, and you were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic."

A part of her wants to ask him about that memory, to have him fill in the blanks, provide those crucial components of the jigsaw puzzle and allow her to understand. It's a peculiar curiosity; it reminds her of a brief phase in which she took an interest in her family history, assembled family trees of newly-discovered ancestors, went with her mother to the National Archives in London and pulled up records of long-lost great, great, great grandparents of another time.

This memory, this life that she can only recall the vaguest details of, it feels as though it's a part of her history. It feels as though it's a part of who she is, but only in the same way as discovering her great great grandmother had worked in a Victorian teashop in Blackpool had caused her to wonder if that was where her and her mother's shared love of baking had originated.

The point at the epicentre of that rather off-topic analogy is that while she feels as though those echoes of her soul are somehow a part of her, the real her, she most certainly does not see them as _being_ her. There's a rather definite distinction in her mind, at this stage in proceedings at least.

And so when the doctor demonstrates such reluctance to put together those few fragments of another existence that still linger in her mind, Clara finds she's too exhausted to try and talk him round. Somehow those missing jigsaw pieces simply don't seem important enough, not when she's so tired she feels as though she's been running and running for all of eternity (now she thinks about, that's quite possible; this is going to take some getting used to).

Family history research didn't seem all that important the week her mother passed away.

And for that reason, Clara fails to put up a fight when the doctor repositions her pillows and tells her she needs to sleep, that he's not entirely sure what the timescale for recovery after jumping into the timestream of a timelord is for a human because no one has been idiotic enough to attempt it before (well, he uses 'selfless', Clara mentally corrects him to 'idiotic') but he's willing to bet she's exhausted and more sleep certainly isn't going to hurt her.

She's tired enough that she's willing to give in at that, her eyes closing before he's even had time to finish.

She's so exhausted that she surrenders to sleep again almost immediately, doesn't notice the way he holds her hand, strokes her hair, sits by her side until she awakes.

When she opens her eyes again, almost another three days later, she's suddenly overwhelmed with a horrible feeling that the world as she knows it is over and she's never going to feel quite like herself ever again.

With the benefit of hindsight, Clara will realise that what she experiences in those first few days of alertness after her jumping into the doctor's timestream is something akin to an emotional breakdown.

It's a wonderful thing, hindsight. It's so easy to see things clearly with hindsight.

At the time, over-emotional and constantly exhausted and struggling to make sense of the mess of emotions and hazy memories forever haunting her, it's almost impossible to make any sense of what's happening to her at all.

She feels as though she should be getting better, right from that first morning of consciousness. It might be the first time she's been awake for any great length of time since her soul was shattered, but it's been almost a week now.

It's been almost a week- Clara tells herself that almost constantly. It's been almost a week; she should be recovering by now. She should be getting over her ordeal, she should be better.

There's she's convinced there's no excuse for feeling even more all over the place than she did before.

She feels as though she's a burden to him.

Sometimes, in her darkest moments during those first few days, she wonders why the doctor keeps her around.

A part of her expects him to make some excuse about her needing some humanly normality and dropping her off back at the Maitlands' at any moment. Because this just isn't him; following him almost obsessively throughout his existence, right across the farthest reaches of time and space has taught her that if nothing else. This simply isn't him, staying in one place this long (even if that one place is the confines of the TARDIS), doing the whole domestic thing. It isn't him at all.

She doesn't know how much longer he's going to last before the compulsion to gallivant off somewhere new becomes too much for him to handle and her presence, weak, broken, crippled, is resented.

On the odd occasion, Clara wonders if perhaps it would be better to beat him to it and request he take her home.

But each and every time she considers it, something deep within her stops her. Something she can't quite explain.

She's so convinced she's a burden by now that she fails to notice how caring he is around her in those first few days. She's more than a little oblivious to the fact that he refuses to leave her alone, that he positions himself at her side far more than usual, that there's far more in the way of physical contact between them. It goes over her head; each and every one of his attempts to comfort her, to make her feel safe and wanted, goes right over her head.

She's far too wrapped up in her own internal struggle to notice.

She feels as though she doesn't know who she is anymore, that's the problem, Clara decides, curled up in a chair in the TARDIS library and attempting to lose herself in the novel in front of her in order to distract herself from the overwhelming headache (which would be perfectly normal, if enough humans made a habit of throwing themselves into timestreams for any side effects of such to become normal, the doctor has told her time and time again. Clara wonders if he realises he's not exactly reassuring). All these... alternative, is that the right word for it? All these alternative versions of herself, they're not her. They aren't... are they?

That's what's scaring her the most about all this: trying to work out what she is to all these thousands of versions of herself roaming all of time and space on a desperate mission to save the doctor, what they all are to her?

Is she the original? In terms of her own timeline, chronologically speaking, Clara knows she is. She is the Clara Oswald who made the decision to jump into the doctor's timestream and scatter herself into all these fragments, that makes her the original, the true version, surely? Of course it does.

The only problem with that justification, of course, is that time isn't straightforward. Time is pretty damn complicated at the best of times and time can be rewritten. Clara has witnessed that very phenomenon first hand enough times to know it to be true. Maybe in terms of her own life, her own timeline, she's the first Clara, the original, but what about in terms of time itself?

She can't remember enough to be sure, but out of all the versions of herself required in order to save the doctor throughout time and space, Clara is almost certain she can't be the first of her doppelgangers. How could she be, when her mad man in a snog box has travelled so far and so wide?

She has brief memories of a castle on a cloud, like a scene from a picturesque fairy tale, accompanied by visions of china teacups and corsets and horse-drawn carriages trekking through the snow, a time before weather forecasts and salt on the roads... a pub with no till and no florescent shots behind the bar, eightpence for an ale...

Another time, in short, an earlier period, Clara can recall enough of the life of that particular echo to establish that much. That echo existed in a time long before she was even thought of, she's sure of it; maybe even long before her great great grandmother had opened her teashop on the seafront.

Does that make that castle on the cloud version of herself the original- or closer to being the original than Clara herself, at least?

She doesn't know. All she knows is that all this thinking and overthinking the logistics of time travel and the havoc it plays with chronological order is only causing her headache to worsen.

She doesn't talk about the way she's feeling during those first few days. In fact, she doesn't really talk about anything at all. She knows she worries him- the doctor- she's retained enough of a sense of who she, Clara Oswald, the original, is to understand that this silence is rather out of character. She can tell by the way he's so protective of her despite the two of them never leaving the confines of the TARDIS that he's worried about her.

She finds she can't muster the energy to remind him that contrary to his apparent beliefs, she isn't made of glass.

Or maybe she's just afraid that if he stops fussing over her so, the TARDIS will assume she's fully recovered and move her goddamned bedroom until the door is positioned at the very bottom of the deep end of the swimming pool again.

The amount of sleeping she does over the course of those few days, even after she's come round from her six days near enough flat out, is absolutely ridiculous.

She feels lazy. She worries that the doctor thinks she's lazy, that he'll decide she lacks the spark required to travel with him any longer and as soon as he deems her recovered enough to cope with the blow he'll kick her out and parcel her off back to the Maitlands'. She worries, because being a little hopeless at domestic and emotions and other humany issues like feelings and worries seems to be a recurring theme running through the personality traits of his eleven faces (eleven and a half, technically, but she assumes he'd rather she glossed over that).

She worries he won't realise the reason she's been so quiet and withdrawn is that she's struggling to cope, that he'll think she doesn't want to travel with him anymore and dump her back where he found her.

She doesn't think he quite realises how badly that would break her heart.

The trouble is, Clara reasons on the third day, still lacking the motivation or the energy to do anything but curl up in large leather chairs in the library, he just doesn't understand why she did it.

The doctor thinks he understands. He thinks he's being so helpful when he sits beside her in the library and brings her hot chocolate, wraps his arms around her shoulders and tells her she really is his impossible girl after all. He thinks he's making her feel better when he tells her that her single selfless action saved the whole of time and space, that the universe will be forever in her debt.

If anything, he's only making her feel worse.

Because that's not why she did it, and she knows it full well.

She did it because she knew she couldn't bear to lose him. She simply couldn't bear it if he were gone from her forever.

And that made risking her own life in order to save his well and truly worth it.

However horribly cliché that sounds.

She was willing to risk her life for him, willing to sacrifice everything in order for him to live, not because she knew without him the universe would fall apart but because he simply means the world to her.

Clara isn't convinced the doctor would even be able to get his alleged twenty seven brains around that one even if she tried to explain it to him.

Never mind her; it's the doctor who is the selfless one.

He's so busy running that he never stops to notice just how much he means to her.

And that, of course, it the root cause of the problem: the doctor can't possibly make her feel any better without truly understanding why she feels so conflicted and ashamed, why his constantly telling her that she's saved the universe, that she's fantastic, his impossible girl, is only making her feel a thousand times worse.

Clara doesn't want to be the doctor's impossible girl, not when she knows she doesn't deserve that title. She's not the girl who selflessly sacrificed herself in order to save the universe, she's the girl who did something well and truly idiotic because the thought of life without the madman who means the world to her and yet is completely and utterly oblivious to her feelings was too terrifying to bear.

How clingy and desperate does that make her sound?

It's during those first few days spend curled up in the library with the doctor, awake but still constantly exhausted, that Clara makes her crucial mistake.

She assumes that it will get better, that her body simply needs time to recover from something it wasn't even remotely designed to go through, that in a few days' time sitting around with a book will become a little less exhausting and she'll begin to get back to normal.

She assumes wrong.

If anything, Clara finds herself feeling all the more exhausted by the end of the week. It's as though even though she has very little in the way of memories of those alternative existences, each and every one of those alter egos is passing on every last fragment of their exhaustion onto her.

She feels as though all of the sleep in the world couldn't possibly be sufficient.

She's exhausted. She's well and truly exhausted, and the existence of those thousands of other versions of herself are making her afraid that she no longer has an identity of her own.

He might have been oblivious to her presence the majority of the times she saved him, but there were times when the doctor did notice her, Clara knows that much because he's told her. She remembers; since Trenzalore she remembers him confronting her, she remembers him mentioning a computer genius trapped within in a dalek asylum, a Victorian governess.

Are those the scenes she recalls, too? Do those memories linger on in her mind while those of her other existences have faded into nothingness because they're more powerful, because the sole purpose of those lives was to save the doctor, her doctor, and it was those during those lives that he finally noticed her? Clara isn't sure. She tries not to think about it too much. She starts to wonder if her own existence is made considerably less significant by the presence of her doppelgangers in the universe if she allows herself to think about it too much, and questioning her own importance in the general scheme of things seems to be the root cause of the nightmares.

The trouble is, the more Clara tries her best not to think about it, the more her mind seems to linger upon that forbidden subject.

When she tries to sleep, she's haunted by a recurring vivid nightmare in which she's held down and a metal framework is placed over her head, in which strangely mechanical voices taunt her and while her doctor's voice rages through her ears, he himself is nowhere to be found.

It scares her. It scares her because during those nightmares, Clara doesn't know if she's herself or one of her echoes, doesn't know if what's happening to her is just a horrible dream or what was once reality for somebody else. And assuming what she's experiencing really occurred, that her nightmares are the last moments of her echoes, then does the fact that she relives their anguish in her sleep each night mean they're somehow one and the same?

Or perhaps the balance between them all is even more distorted than that, Clara worries at times, lying alone, shivering, in the middle of her bed, more exhausted than ever and yet too afraid to close her eyes and surrender to the nightmares once more. She isn't the first version of herself that the doctor has met, after all; what if he preferred one of her alter egos to her? What if always in the back of his mind there's a tinge of regret that she had to be the original, that it couldn't be some other version of her who was the original, that it had to be her?

And, of course, that other version only came into being in the first place because she, Clara Oswald, existed first.

Oh, the irony.

A part of Clara wonders if this is what it feels like to have some sort of personality disorder. It's certainly an identity crisis, if nothing else. She feels as though she doesn't know who she is anymore, doesn't understand who she's supposed to be, can't remember.

She had thought it would be the answer to everything, saving her doctor. She had thought it would solve all her problems, assumed that if she died it would be the end of her awareness and if she lived she would have her doctor back, be with him forever.

She hadn't banked on feeling so conflicted and confused in the aftermath.

It's a few days later that the doctor announces that she can't stay cooped up inside the TARDIS any longer, that it's time for another excursion and it will make her feel better, he guarantees it.

Clara wishes she had the same naïve optimism.

She goes along with his plan regardless of her reservations, decides that he must be bored to death of having to remain cooped up with her all day long by now and the very least she owes him is this.

She has to at least try, Clara tells herself. For him. Her doctor.

She'll try, and if it's a complete and utter disaster and she feels more lost and confused than ever on whatever alien planet he lands them on, that sense of curiosity and adventure she recalls so well failing to return to her even a little, then Clara knows she will have to bite the bullet and request he take her home.

She can't do this to him any longer. It's not fair. She can't tag along half-heartedly with him on adventures while still struggling to remember who she is, but it's not fair to tie him down with her in her addled mental state when she doesn't know how long she's going to take before she snaps out of it, either.

_If _she snaps out of it, Clara realises. That's a rather scary thought.

Sometimes she feels like a lab rat in some sort of freakish scientific experiment gone horribly wrong. Nothing about her recovery from this is pre-documented, nothing predictable; everything she experiences is a complete and utter mystery, never having occurred before and unlikely ever to again.

In a way, Clara supposes that makes her unique, just a little special.

Except she doesn't feel special.

She has no greater desire than to feel normal, and yet that she's terrified she might never experience that feeling ever again.

And so when the doctor tells her to close her eyes, taking her by the hand and pulling her gently towards the TARDIS doors, Clara does her best to look and sound enthusiastic. He's clearly failed to notice she's falling apart more than ever before, which means Clara has to do her utmost not to let it show that she's failed to see the damage right in front of his eyes.

Maybe she is made out of glass, after all. Horribly thin glass; and her thousand echoes are threatening her with a sledge hammer.

She takes, slow, tentative steps as he leads her out of the TARDIS, as though afraid his hand might slip through hers and leave her to fend for herself at any moment. It's irrational, this overwhelming fear inside her; Clara knows that.

The trouble is that knowing it's irrational doesn't make talking herself out of it any easier.

"Stop there." His voice is soft as his hands come to rest on her shoulders, tender, caring. "You ready?"

She manages a slow, nervous nod, shivering a little, only now realising that wherever, whenever, they are, it's really rather cold.

"OK." He rubs her shoulders gently, hands sliding down her arms until he's holding her hands. "Open your eyes."

She does as he says.

It's dark; that's the first thing Clara takes in. It's a dark night, the sky a velvet navy blue, one perfect white crescent floating peacefully above them in a starlit sky. Earth. It's a clear night, no cloud cover, the constellations perfectly clear as they shine brightly against that deep blue backdrop, vivid and sparkling and delicate all at once.

They're on the corner of a narrow, cobbled street, looking out from their isolated pocket of darkness onto a pedestrian square of vibrant lights. There's a cluster of narrow, stone bridges right ahead of them, a light display hanging gracefully above each one, stars and colourful strings of light that flash elegantly in a dazzling Christmas light display. It's snowing, just lightly, a thin layer of white dust beginning to conceal the cobbled street from view as delicate snowflakes catch the light from the display above the bridges, and even though December is still a good few months away within her own timeline Clara can't help but smile at its beauty.

There's a dull background murmur as they step slowly out of the alleyway; people, Clara realises, the square is filled with people. It's the middle of the night on a snowy day in December and yet the square is filled with people, mulled wine vendors littering its perimeters, outdoor café seating crammed with customers, blankets draped over the few free seats that remain. Tall terracotta buildings with long, narrow windows and a dusting of snow and seasonal fairy lights tower above them; European, elaborate, a Viennese feel.

It's mystical, peaceful, so wonderfully human.

Somehow it manages to achieve what Clara had previously thought to be impossible.

It makes her feel better.

"Where are we?" she breathes softly, just a little awestruck. "Austria?"

"Not quite. Better than that," the doctor tells her, and even though he's stood behind her and she can't see him, Clara can practically hear the beaming smile in his tone.

"Budapest?"

"Nope. Welcome, Clara Oswald, to the old city centre of Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia, northern most tip of the former Yugoslavia. Before that it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, before that it was Bavaria, and before that it was a part of the Roman Empire. Thousands of years of foreign rule, suppression by one empire after the next; finally gained independence in 1991 as the first nation to pull out of the Yugoslav Federation. It was never intended to be a capital city, Ljubljana; it was always just a city within someone else's empire. Hence its size. They built a new wing of the city over the road when independence came, that's where the administration is. This is the old capital, it's a pedestrian city now. And every year at Christmas they go all out; fairy lights, Christmas market, mulled wine under the stars." He wraps his arms around her back, turning her gently until she's facing him. "Do you like it?"

"It's... beautiful." That statement is so horribly cliché, and yet she's so mesmerised by the sparkling lights and the peace and tranquillity of it all that she can't quite find the words to express her delight in any other way. "It's so... so simple, somehow, it just works, it's perfect."

"Thought you'd like it. Human race at its best, this. He takes her hand, leading her further still out of the alleyway. "Wonderful people, the Slovenes. Not to be confused with the Slitheen, of course, nasty race, the Slitheens. But the Slovenes, different matter entirely. December 2013 and Slovenia's predicted to be the next country to go down in the Eurozone crisis, and yet the festive spirit here is as alive as ever. They're their own people, Clara," he says softly, and suddenly Clara realises he hasn't been so oblivious to her internal conflict after all. "Thousands of years of being a part of someone else's empire and yet they're still their own people. Doesn't matter that this region's been ruled by foreign powers for so many years of its existence, or that they've been shaped by having to take on so many different identities. At the end of it all Slovenia is Slovenia, not part of anybody else's empire. It might be shaped by other cultures, it might still carry traces of Viennese architecture, of Slavic culture, but it's still Slovenia, it's distinctly different." He tilts her head until she's forced to look right into his eyes, warm, compassionate, understanding. "Do you see what I'm trying to say, Clara?" he whispers.

"That... that those... echoes... they're not me," Clara manages shakily, her voice caught in the back of her throat. "They might look like me, they might be similar, but they're not me."

"Of course not. You're you, Clara. Clara Oswald; not Clara Oswin Oswald, not Oswin Oswald. Clara Oswald. There might be echoes of you scattered right across time and space, but none of them are _you_, Clara. None of them. You're the only original. Look." He take her hand, raising her arm until she's pointing up at the night sky along with him. "The stars. Your stars, Clara. They're still there today, December 2013, because of you. Doesn't matter why you did it, all that matters is you did. You stopped the stars from going out, Clara Oswald, you saved the universe time and time again. Not your echoes, you. They would never have existed if it wasn't for you."

He takes her hand again, leading her through the snow along the stone bridge ahead of them, gentler, calmer, somehow, than is usual for him when exploring a new place. He's aware that she can't cope with the madness and mayhem that's so typical of their adventures just yet, aware that she's still fragile.

And he's accepting of that.

He's telling her he's willing to wait as long as it takes for her to reclaim herself, in his own, roundabout way.

It's rather fitting, all things considered. How else could he possibly express himself to her if not through the eyes of the universe?

"Come on," he whispers, giving her hand a gentle tug. "Mulled wine under the snow and the stars, how does that sound?"

"Perfect," she whispers, smiling properly for the first time in over a week.

They're halfway across the bridge when something glistening catches her eye.

"Doctor." Clara stops in her tracks, eyes straining a little in the light of the moon and the Christmas lights to make out the glimmers above the water down below. "Are they... padlocks?"

They're definitely padlocks, Clara realises as her vision begins to focus, there's no doubt about it. Hundreds upon hundreds of padlocks, various different shapes and sizes, locked firmly in place around the thick strands of horizontal wire running along the sides of the bridge.

"Old city tradition," the doctor explains quietly. "Superstition, really. Lovers come here to lock their padlock around the bridge and cast the key into the river. The padlock symbolises their love."

"So by throwing away the key, they're bound together forever?"

"Exactly. Clara?"

"Hmm?"

"I've never thanked you," He whispers, his voice gentle and low. "For what you did. Not for saving the universe, for saving me. Thank you."

"I'd do it again," Clara whispers, leaning into his chest. "For you. I would."

"I know," he murmurs softly. "I know you would." He reaches into his pocket, pulling out something heavy and solid and TARDIS blue, and she laughs a little.

"Is there anything you haven't got in those pockets?" Clara giggles. She reaches out to take the padlock from his palm, turning the key to open the lock. Slowly, diligently, she hooks the curve of the lock around the wire of the bridge, clicks it closed, holds out the key to the man she risked sacrificing herself in order to save.

"Care to do the honours?" she asks, holding out the key.

He takes it in his hands, turning it over as though it's the most precious thing in the world.

"Of course."

"Didn't know you did romantic," she teases him lightly, reaching up to brush the snowflakes from his shoulders.

He moves to pull his arm back to throw, then hesitates, clenching the key tightly in his palm as he leans down to whisper in her ear, releasing his grip as those four short words escape his lips and the key breaks the surface of the river, disappearing from view, binding them forever.

"For you, I will."


End file.
